Crash Course Meditation
Serene and focused in every situation: With our "Crash Course Meditation" you learn step by step the art of relaxation. Plus: eight lightweight mini shut-off exercises.
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Let go of stress and worry
Pushing the deadlines, the boss asks for the impossible and the quarrel with the partner is still haunting his head - we often feel mentally burdened with stress and worries. But instead of occasionally emptying the "wastebasket in the head", the thoughts circle endlessly. Especially women find it difficult to switch off.
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A recent study by the German Sport University Cologne showed: 74 percent postpone recovery periods or treat themselves at all and therefore often feel burned out. A highly effective antidote to mental and physical stress is mindfulness, full focus on the moment and the "I".
Relax by mindfulness
For those who consciously observe their thoughts, emotions and health can better get rid of them. There are more and more courses and books on this topic.
The 42-year-old Maren Schneider from Dusseldorf is a teacher for stress management through mindfulness and has developed an eight-week crash course for meditation. "My program is perfect for people who are constantly energized! They learn to create islands of tranquility in everyday life and to firmly integrate time-outs. "
Learn meditation
Mindfulness meditation has many positive effects: It strengthens the stress resistance, activates the immune system and can even relieve mild depression.
"With just up to ten minutes a day, you'll be more balanced, more productive, and more enjoyable, " says the expert, advising, "Practice the following eight sequential meditation sequences at least once a week for a week - Exercise 1, in the first week the second week only exercise 2, etc. With the eight selected mini-meditations you can easily switch off in between!
1st week: your breath is the foundation
This basic exercise gives you a first impression of what meditation is. It succeeds everyone and is used throughout the program. Sit upright on a chair. Focus your attention on the breath by fixing a spot in the body where you feel it especially: in the nose, chest or abdomen. The breath should flow naturally, it does not have to be particularly deep or calm. Practice morning and evening exercises every three to five minutes to feel your breath and return to it when distracted.
Week 2: create islands of tranquility
In the second week you will learn how to mentally retire in everyday life and escape the stress of small mental retreats. Sit by the window or in a meadow. Just look around and open your senses: feel the wind on your cheek, smell the grass, hear the birds chirping. As soon as thoughts emerge that whisper to you that you can do more important things with your time and so much to do, make them burst like bubbles. Stay in the here and now and intensively perceive the moment with all your senses. After five minutes, finish the exercise and return to your tasks.
3rd Week: Time-out for the thoughts
This lesson teaches you to control your thoughts rather than the other way around - so you become the boss in your head. Take your preferred meditation posture, sitting on the floor, sitting on a chair or lying down. Every time you jump on a thought and begin to brood, you consciously break off and focus on your breathing as long as possible. Let the thoughts go by for ten minutes, like clouds in the sky that pop up and go away if you ignore them.
4th week: interference factor zero
In everyday life, you can always distract something while meditating. That's why you now learn how to integrate disruptions. Go into your meditation posture. Let the thoughts drift and come to rest. Now focus your attention on sounds. Be sure to name them: tram, barking, keyboard typing. Try to see every sound as a sequence of sounds, without titles or associating with unpleasant situations or feelings: the rising and falling volume, the silence in between. After that, turn your attention back to your breath. Without titling and association, the sounds will fade into the background. After ten minutes, finish the meditation.
5th week: eliminate pain
This unit will show you how to deal with unpleasant body sensations. If the enemy picture "pain" no longer exists and you release less stress hormones, the immune system also works more intensively. Go into a meditation posture and come to rest. Concentrate on negative body sensations: tension, back pain, sore muscles. Explore this factually: where can I feel it? Does it pulsate, tingle or poke? Once you begin to comment or dramatize the feeling, slow yourself and focus on the breath again. After ten minutes, finish the meditation.
Week 6: emotional handling of the ego
In the sixth week you learn to deal with emotions more relaxed and with healthy distance. Take a meditation posture. Concentrate now consciously on disturbing feelings: anger, fear, grief. Which physical sensations, which pictures and thoughts go along with it? When you begin to comment on your emotions, moan or lose yourself in stories, stop and come back to the breath. Finish the meditation after eight minutes.
7th week: pretty relaxed
To take difficult circumstances calmly is content of the seventh week. Go into meditation posture and come to rest. Now think specifically about something that worries you or what you are afraid of. Now formulate sentences for six minutes in which you wish all the best: "May I experience deep joy and happiness." "May spontaneous solutions arise." "May I develop patience." Speak these sentences inwardly lovingly addressed to each other out. If you can think of anything else, sit in silence for the rest of the time and keep the warm-hearted feeling.
Week 8: Meditation in every situation
The supreme discipline is to use the meditation techniques successfully even if you have little time. A meditative inventory in everyday life helps to keep a clear head in stressful moments. Go into meditation and explore what is going on in you right now: what you think and feel physically. Register everything sober, whether pleasant or not. Then concentrate on your breath again. He is your anchor helping you to stay objective. After four minutes, open your eyes and return to your tasks.
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